


It's Alright If You Do

by sparebikes



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, M/M, Post-Fall of Insomnia (Final Fantasy XV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 13:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20546732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparebikes/pseuds/sparebikes
Summary: It's Galdin Quay, in the middle of the night, and they're standing in the ocean.





	It's Alright If You Do

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first attempt at writing fic, i love these boys.  
this isn't beta read so forgive any mistakes.

They’re in Galdin Quay, it is well into the night. It had been a taxing past couple of days, everyone in the group was exhausted so Ignis had sprung for a hotel room out on the beach. Noctis and Prompto have walked across the long stretch of the pier from their hotel and down into the sand, Specs and Gladio none the wiser.  
Hours after the oldest two fell into a deep slumber, Noctis had yet to silence his thoughts. He had turned to Prompto, still awake in their shared bed, fully aware that the blonde could feel the anxiety he radiated in full-body shivers and labored breathing. He was thankful for the darkness of the room and the fact that it at least obscured his face, his body already doing so much to betray him. This was stupid. He was _'fine'._  
  
“Hey” Prompto whispered, turning so they both lay on their side, facing each other. “You know what would be like, so awesome? If we went on a walk. I’ve been _dying_ to get pictures of the night time here and I’m honestly having a bit of trouble sleeping anyway” he smiled.__  
  
A lie, obviously, but one he was grateful for regardless. Noctis stared, trying to make out the blonde’s features before shrugging and turning to lay on his back, making a non-committal sound. He knew Prompto would know what he meant: yes, thank you, I’m sorry.  
Prompto huffed a laugh as he sat up and playfully slapped Noctis’ forehead, making his nose scrunch up, “Come on buddy, let's go.”  
And so the two of them find themselves walking down the sand and towards the water as Prompto enthusiastically recalls events from the day before. It's nice, He thinks, hearing his best friend talk, always so excited and filled to the brim with a sort of barely contained nervous energy. Noctis shoves his hands into his hoodie and tries hard to listen, to focus on the other’s cheery tone or the movement of his hands as he speaks, anything other than the feeling of wanting to crawl out of his own skin, of wanting to reach up and feel the red hot drag of nails across his face-  
  
“Hey” Prompto snaps him out of his increasingly deteriorating trail of thoughts, and he turns to see the blonde a ways away, struggling to get his boots off and remain upright before giving up and plopping down into the sand.  
  
“Wanna go for a dip?”  
  
Noctis deadpans, “You can't be serious, it's freezing.”  
  
Prompto meets his gaze head-on with a teasing grin, “Didn’t peg you to be such a coward, Caelum.”  
  
Noctis raises an eyebrow, feeling the corner of his lips twitch ever so slightly, “This coming from the kid who watched the entirety of that cheesy horror movie with his hands over his eyes?”  
  
At this distance, he can faintly see Prompto flush pink.  
  
“It's a horror movie _dude_, how was I _supposed_ to react? And that's beside the point.”____  
  
Noctis stares as Prompto makes work to take his other shoe off and the flush on his friend’s cheeks goes down to its usual rosiness.  
  
After a moment he responds, “Fine, but if I get sick I’m telling Specs it was all your idea” he adds, ignoring the beaming smile Prompto sends him and the heat he can feel rising in his own face.  
  
They discard their shoes and socks and make their way down into the water, Prompto complaining that _Oh my Gods it is so cold_, despite the fact that it was his idea in the first place. Noctis feels himself start to smile again before he's hit with an overwhelming wave of negativity that nearly makes him double over. He reigns it in and tries to control his breathing, focus on the sensation of the air moving in and out and not on anything else, not the guilt or the sadness or the millions of thoughts running a mile a minute through his head, leaving him winded.__  
  
They stand in the water for what feels like an eternity while Noctis tries to take control of his thoughts, reminding himself that he's _here_ and he’s _fine_.____  
  
Prompto stands beside him, fiddles with the camera he has slung around his neck. He hasn't asked what's wrong, which he deserves to, considering he's standing in the freezing ocean in the middle of the night. Noctis owes him an explanation at the very least, but his tongue feels like lead and his head won’t stop spinning. He's fine, this was stupid, he's obviously bothering his friend and talking about feelings is uncomfortable.  
  
“My brain,” he starts, closing his eyes tight. He feels Prompto's gaze, hears the quiet slosh of the water below as the other turns to face him.  
“It's not-it doesn't- it won't _stop_. I just need it to _stop_.”____  
  
He still can’t open his eyes, still can't bring himself to look at his friend, his confidant. His skin feels like it's on fire, his fingers itch to scratch at it, to feel any sort of relief from his mortification.  
This is stupid. He feels sick. He's _fine_.__  
  
“Everything- everything just happens so much all the time and it just won't _stop_. How, how do I go on? How do I not _crumble_ beneath it?”____  
  
A beat, silence, “I don't know buddy, you kind of just have to. We all do.”  
  
“Yeah, well it fucking sucks” Noctis huffs, to which Prompto responds with a laugh,  
  
“Oh, most definitely, existence is a god damn curse”, it's obviously a joke, a way to ease the tension, but there is a layer of sincerity beneath the irony that makes Noctis’ skin crawl. They both choose to ignore it.  
  
Noctis snorts, pushing away the idea that his friend can at all relate to the constant stream of negative thoughts plaguing his mind at all times, to instead reach over and punch the blonde’s shoulder.  
  
They both have issues, he knows- they both know. But looking past the jokes and the irony means talking and honesty and shedding light on thoughts that live and subsist entirely on darkness. Noctis all ready feels raw and splayed open and, knowing Prompto, questioning the authenticity of his comment will lead to stammering, sweating, and avoidance in the form of more jokes. If there is anything guaranteed to make his friend lock himself away quicker than asking about his well being then Noctis doesn't know what it is. Maybe confessing to having heard him singing loudly in Noctis’ shower to some crappy top 40 song the morning after a sleepover when he thought Noctis was still out of it. Probably not. Nothing seems to get under Prompto’s skin like being on the receiving end of genuine concern.  
  
Vulnerability is hard, Noctis gets it. If Specs or Gladio were to ask at any given time how he was doing, he thinks Prompto would probably understand the burning itch beneath his skin, the desperate urge to scratch and scrape until he looks as mottled and raw as he feels. It's a game really, if Noctis acknowledges Prompto’s feelings then there's a good chance that Prompto will ask about his, and he's not sure he is even physically capable of disclosing half of the garbled cacophony that seems to play like a broken record between his ears.  
Acknowledging Prompto’s feelings, in turn, means acknowledging that Noctis feels anything at all, and he doesn't know if that's true. It's an agreement, they’ll have to talk about it at some point, but not today. Noctis secretly hopes he's cold and deep under before that day comes, that if his feelings ever were to break the surface, the itch and disgust that would follow would be soothed by the crash of the waves pulling him under. He’ll pretend he doesn’t notice the comments or the flinching or the forced smiles that look almost painful as long as Prompto doesn’t mention the scratches and the dizziness and the fact that he goes days at a time with the inability to so much as get out of bed, as long as Prompto pretends not to notice how essentially useless he is.  
  
It's better not to think too deeply about it, his best friend thinks about death as much as he does.  
  
He wonders if this is normal, if everyone else seems to perform such rigorous mental gymnastics even when interacting with one of their closest friends, to the point where a mere conversation leaves them ragged and out of breath.  
Does everyone feel tired? Is everyone else exhausted? Do their bones ache, does their head split, do the voices deafen them? He feels his father’s hands on his shoulders in that moment, a once reassuring and warm touch now hollow and cold. Noctis suppresses a full-body shiver, his fingers twitch ever so slightly at his side- almost as if he wants to reach out to the blonde. He stops himself, that's nonsense, its stupid, he's _fine_. The phantom touch of his father is gone and in its wake leaves an emptiness, a _yearning_. He tries not to think about holding Prompto’s hand.____  
  
He and Prompto are silent, staring out to where the water meets the just as relentlessly inky sky. The turbulent and ever-changing nature of both sky and sea for a moment, in perfect silent synchronicity. There is nothing but darkness, there isn't even sound. It is unfamiliar and calm and scary and comforting in a way nothing has ever been. It is silence akin to the sound of a tv losing power after what feels like a lifelong crescendo of static.  
Both boys find themselves suspended in that moment, untethered to Eos below, no longer feeling the sand between their toes or the gentle lapping of waves against their calves. They tilt their heads back and give their undivided attention to the blackened sky, its white specks seemingly winking in and out of existence in time with their breath.  
It is unlike the darkness the prince is ever so accustomed to. Like the silence from before, there is a comfort to it, a weight unlike that of a crown or the eyes of an entire nation trained on the perfectly schooled features of a frightened boy, not yet a man. A weight, unlike the one his mere existence burdens everyone he loves with.  
He becomes aware of existence outside of himself, in that moment, is able to detach from the weight of his thoughts and his lineage. The crashing waves sound like silence, he exists in a field of energy, rocking him ever so gently. It is as unnerving as it is deeply comforting.  
  
He tries to lean back further, to take more of it in- as much as he can. Distantly, he feels his back protest the movement, knows that if he felt at all corporeal at the moment that he’d think better than pushing too far but, as it were, he feels nothing. He's dizzy, and as his head tilts further back to take in the grandiosity of the sky, the stars- the fact that he is one of them- he loses his footing.  
  
Prompto is there, always there, at some point having peeled his eyes away from the night sky to steady his friend, reaching for his wrist and reminding Noctis that he does, in fact, inhabit a physical form.  
  
“Easy there, dude” Prompto breathes, his voice seeming incapable of projecting any louder in fear of disrupting whatever has just happened. His fingers linger around his wrist for a moment before he begins to pull back.  
  
Noctis tears his eyes away from the sky, the stars, finally- to look over at Prompto, to feel his hand on him.  
  
That point of contact, that literal grounding, reminding him that Prompto too exists in that same field of energy, that he too is moved by the world. He is here, with him, breathing and living and carrying any and every action that he has done and has had done onto him. He is an amalgamation of everything happening too much all at once, much in the same way Noctis is. He is a creation of the sky and the earth and the sea continuing to move around them, entirely unconcerned with what is going on in their heads.  
In the second Prompto goes to pull away, Noctis makes a decision. After what feels like a lifetime of drowning in fear and guilt and uncertainty he _chooses_ to grab Prompto’s hand.__  
That point of contact and the warmth his palm radiates feel undeserved, the beginning of another wave of guilt rises in his stomach. As he's starting to worry about _why_ he did that and if he's making things _weird_\- he feels Prompto’s fingers slowly fill the spaces between his own.____  
  
They stare at each other for a moment, Noctis feeling the same dizziness from looking at the stars, the same weightlessness of looking at the sky and feeling truly infinitesimal.  
  
“It's hard” Prompto starts, so softly that Noctis has to strain to hear.  
  
“It's-it's _really hard_.” There's a tremble in his voice, Noctis pretends not to notice. They both do.__  
  
“But you gotta. And I know, it sucks, it fucking _sucks_ and I can’t tell you that it doesn't but I can at least tell you that you're not going through it alone.”__  
He pauses, audibly swallowing. Noctis feels the slow creep of anxiety once more- vulnerability works both ways and he's at a loss for what to do.  
Prompto continues, “But you keep going because there's so much you haven't seen, so many things you can do and so many people to meet-” His voice breaks, Noctis pretends not to notice. “And I wish you could feel happy now but you have the potential to one day feel happier than you ever thought you possibly could.”  
  
Prompto smiles at him through glassy eyes and Noctis thinks of the empty apartment with its barren walls and dusty dining room, he thinks of the meals skipped and the holidays spent alone, how eager Prompto is to take photos and how big and goofy his smile is in all of them. How he loves talking about his day because it no longer consists of just sitting at an empty table in a silent home.  
  
Noctis looks down and squeezes Prompto’s hand. It feels inadequate, he doesn't know what to do. Only one thing comes to mind, so he says it,  
“That's kind of a shit deal but...it sounds pretty worth it”  
  
He squeezes Prompto’s hand again, harder this time, hoping to convey what he knows he can’t say: _Thank you, I’m here, I'm sorry, I wish I was better at this.___  
Prompto squeezes back, he knows, he understands, it's ok, they’re a work in progress.  
  
They’ll talk about it, all of it. Someday, not tonight.  
  
Tonight they’ll stand in the ocean and look up at the endless expanse of darkness and think of everything and nothing. They’ll hold each other down so the other doesn’t float away or get pulled under, and the warmth from where their hand's interlock will combat the coldness of the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> this was incredibly self-indulgent and fun to write.  
if you took the time to read this then, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.


End file.
